TimeSiphon

Knife thrust. Pivot, deflect arm with palm, drive elbow into sternum. Spin, take the knife from his hand and drive it through the eye socket of the man to my left. Grab his gun as it falls from dead hands and fire two shots into the man to my right. He's dead by the time his body hits the floor. Finish move to face the knife man and drive my fist into his face, once...twice...three times until his nose breaks in a spurt of blood.

The nice man in the warehouse told me what I wanted to know, which lead me to another building, an old office building a little farther up town. I grab the knife man by the throat and fling him across the old office space. His back hits a window and the glass explodes outward, his body flies out into the city skyline and he plummets. I doubt he survives the impact. I turn before the body is even fully out of the window and resume my walk to the door they had apparently been guard.

I reach out and feel the door handle, I can see the temporal lines of the trigger mechanisms and traps on the other side and I bite back a laugh. These people are dangerous amateurs with just enough internet knowledge of my species to get themselves in trouble...these people are tied to the one who stole from me but they sure aren't lead by him. Of course I could kill them all without entering the room, but I'm showing restraint remember? Instead I remove my hand from the door and step through time, appearing on the other side to a cacophonic choir of gun shots, a veritable storm of bullets. I stop them and just leave them hanging in mid air. The demonstration is enough that a few of the men in the trap actively piss their pants.

I grab hold of their temporal lines, coiling around the lot of their pathetic lives and reading into their histories and possible futures. I let them live, this isn't about murdering people...this is about finding information. Of the five men in the room pointing AR-15s at me. Really...AR-15s? I'm not impressed, go buy a real gun boys. Anyway, of the five men all but one is left in a temporal stasis until I feel like dealing with them. The one backs away, stammering something about having children and a wife. I've heard that line before...a lot.

Funny thing is, it's true. It usually is. His back is against the wall now and he's begging for his life.

"Someone who hired you stole something from me that I consider far more valuable than anything on this planet." I tell him, partly for dramatic effect and partly because it's true. I walk forward, there's a foot between us now and his eyes are wide with terror. I lick my lips. "Where are they?"

"I don't know, he doesn't tell us anything, he just leaves messages...orders...orders for us to follow! That's it I swear! We're just hired thugs, we're not important!" He's right about that part.

"You know more than you're telling me. You have a family of five...two daughters, one six, the other ten. You have a wife as well...a son too, he's overseas in...Japan. I like Japan, nice place. You also have a dog and a cat. Right now your wife is at work. She's pouring a pot of coffee and she doesn't know it, but your answer will determine if she ever takes a sip."

He frozen, half in panic, half as he thought about where his wife was right now. There it is, the realization that she's on her break right now. Good boy.

"He...he...I don't know. All I know is he operates through some sort of shell company with a branch here in Bludhaven. I think it's...I think it's headquarters is in Atlanta but that's probably not where he is, he's too smart for that."

Mhm. I lean forward and smile a little. "Good boy." I turn around and head for the door. A wave of my hand and the locks and security devices that are supposed to be impervious to age disintegrate.

"Did...did you hurt her?"He asked behind me.

"Go visit her at work and find out."I tell him. She's alive, she's just fine, but maybe if he gets out of here he'll start worrying about the things he only worried about when his life was threatened. The door shuts behind me, the four men in the room with him are allowed out of their stasis a moment later.

How many of these cities does humanity make? I don't know the number, but i do know there's too many of them. Cesspools of nonsense, degradation, decay...failure. Detroit, Grim City, Bludhaven, they're all the same place really, when you think about it. It's like looking into a pool of what could be if people stopped caring long enough on a grand scale. Some times a hero comes around, cleans up a little bit and then fades away.

It happens all the time.

I am not that hero.

I am here because these places contain something more than failure. They contain...facilitators. Men and women willing to do just about anything for a little coin, they also contain secrets, usually in the heads of said facilitators. I am here because someone has stolen something from me and I will not allow it to stand. I am here because here I can find information. Whoever did this was smart, they knew how to hide all trace of it from my vision...

As if not seeing was the same as being blind.

As if I wouldn't come for them.

I leap from the rooftop and glide towards the roof of a ubiquitous warehouse. I crash through the steel roof as if it were made of cracked glass, the steal parting before me as it aged in nanoseconds and crumbled away. I land behind two guards playing a game of cards. The first guard can see me behind his friend and his eyes widen in surprise. He dies, dropping away to dust in an eyeblink, not even enough time to scream.

His friend is less lucky. He jumps free of his chair, drawing an uzi from his coat and pulling it into line. Tsk tsk. Fully automatic guns are illegal. The bullets don't even leave the barrel, they disintegrate inside the magazine and the chamber and then the gun itself falls apart in his hands, leaving him stunned and stammering like an idiot. He knows what he's fighting now, they thought they were prepared for it. He's trying to figure out how the gun fell apart so quickly, it had been built out of materials that are supposed to have an infinite life span and the bullets were made of similar materials. I would laugh at his pathetic excuse for knowledge but I'm in no mood.

He launches a fist. I grab his hand as if he were moving in slow motion and wrench his wrist around until I hear several bones breaking. He screams but the sound dies before it can carry past his lips. Sound has a life span. My other hand wraps around his throat and I lift him off his feet. "Say nothing. Listen with utmost care..."The interrogation begins.

Say Nothing.

Listen with utmost care.

This is restraint.

Every story ends and everything dies.

Sometimes it's not the end that matters but the middle parts between beginning and ending, the revolution of change and life. Sometimes the end is just...

what needs to happen.

@demonboundsitri:

I don't ignore her...she's right of course. I just don't have words to respond to her with. The time has come. I turn to Sitri for a moment, looking at her in understanding even though I know she can't see me. I then move to the Temporal Hound's side as the great beast lays down. This scene is repeating itself across this galaxy, the whole temporal hound race is dying at the same time...but this is the one I was friends with. This is the one I knew personally. I shift and take a seat beside his massive head as he lays it on his legs like a cradle.

"Do you remember the night under the stars?"I ask him quietly.

I would never forget.He's losing control, he replied to us both even though I know he only meant a response to be directed at me.

"I speculated what the sky might look like if i had made...even one less mistake. You listened, you let me tell you everything I had been thinking for years because no one...no one had bothered to listen in a very long time." I say, unable to restrain the pain from my voice.

Always afraid of the future.He replied.

I breathed, looking over at him. His skin, such as it was, was cracking. Cracks raced along his hide from dozens of expanding spider webs over his enormous bulk. He was being unmade, the Strings that composed his gigantic bulk were unwinding. This is what it looked like to watch death and do nothing about it. My heart...hurt?

You can't be afraid of the future anymore Raeyn Tesani Emacule. The future is all you have left. He replied, using a full name no one had spoken since before Humans had built their first civilization.

"Those names mean nothing to me."I tell him. It's a conversation we've had a thousand times.

They meant everything to your parents. He retorted, his usual reply.

This time I didn't give him my usual reply. I looked away from him, ashamed...heartbroken. "I have been a terrible friend...and a worse mother."

You regret that more than anything else. More than the billion billion lives you've taken, more than the stars you've caused to wink out. I can hear the pain in your thoughts when you think of Sahi and how you believe you have failed her. He replied, wise as ever, even as reality began to spin off of his hide, his body breaking down at a level invisible to the human eye on the individual level but in such large quantities...you could see reality fading away from him like the shimmer of a desert at high noon.

"Why can't I bring myself to save you?" I asked him.

Because you love me. It is the same reason when your human friend dies you will sit at his side and wait until his last breath fades into memory. It is a reply I didn't expect. At this point there's nothing I can do to keep the tears away.

"Are we capable of love?"I asked him, my voice cracked like splintering, dry wood.

Everyone is capable of love. He replied and turned his head. His eyes were unfocused. Sitri would begin to feel his death now, even the blind could feel reality...breaking apart. It was like a pressure on the chest, a heat that drew air from the lungs and...a feeling of wrongness.

"I don't want you to go." I say desperately. I reach out towards him, temporal energy glowing in my hand.

Don't you dare. He said firmly.You need to see this. This is life Raeyn Tesani Emacule, if you want to move forward, if you want to feel true remorse for what you have done, you need to see this happen. What you feel now, you have imparted on countless lives. If you never want to be that person again, you can't cosmic you're way out of it.

I lower my hand.

He turns his gaze to Stiri, most of his body is gone now but his mind is...a well of peace, no regret, no remorse, no fear, no sadness, no longing for more life...total, complete and calm acceptance.

Her name is a song. Her race was beautiful once, their whole language was a song that wrote itself across the stars, a beautiful song so deep you could feel it more than hear it...it was...superior to language in every way, there was no mistaking the song, no mistaking its meanings or its complexities...true and flawless communication of feeling. Time Siphons were made by taking a peaceful, beautiful race and torturing it until it snapped and there was nothing left but half forgotten names. That's why you can't quite spell them the way they sound, because Raeyn sounds like Rain...but Raeyn Tesani Emacule means Promise of Tomorrow in written tongue...but oh you should hear the song. I think...I have enough left for that.It must have taken a level of concentration beyond comprehension to put his thoughts into only one mind at this point...let alone to compose the song, to play it through the various sensory organs that adorned his skull. The song was more than musical notes...it was musical impact...it was...emotion deeper than words could ever convey that was felt in the bones...no...deeper than that, somewhere, whatever lies deeper than the physical, it resonated like a chorus...it was the song of promise, of joy...of tomorrow.

I hate tomorrow.

When the song played out, he was gone, nothing more than a memory and the last resonating tones of an ancient song that would never be played again.

There was nothing left to do but weep...for him...for the loss of what should have been. For how horribly I have failed my parents, my race and my child.

They say that mourning like this is cathartic.

I hope they're right.

@demonboundsitri:

I wanted to smile a little at her perception but my heart was too heavy for such things. Still, there was merit to her words and judgement in her statement. She did not see me as a good person. I understand. I do not disagree. I returned from where I had been standing and ran an affectionate hand over the Temporal Hound's massive leg. I could feel his hide cracking, it wouldn't be long now. I watched Sitri for a moment in silence. I had been spending all of my time lately mourning that which had been lost...that which I had done...I had spent so little of it doing as she does now...trying to move forward. The past is...even for a Time Siphon...the past. Perhaps my problem is not what I have done but that I do not move forward from what I have done. Fifty thousand years is a lot of history for a living being, a lot of mental baggage and I have carried it with me for so long that I've forgotten how to do anything but look at it.

Sitri's comments were...perhaps more eye opening than she had intended. I had meant this moment to be a bit of a revelation to her but instead it seems, it has been a revelation to me. I have been like that ghost in a Christmas Carol, wrapped in the chains of my past, unwilling and unable to move...forward. What I have done is done, it is the past and if I ever hope to be anything else I need to begin again, move forward. Life for a Time Siphon involves regeneration...but I have never allowed my mind to regenerate. From my first moments on Earth trying to be a hero to this moment here, I have moved from ghost to ghost. I see now.

"You are an insightful being." I tell her. She had to move forward from her past, her vision was torn from her body and she had to adapt and move forward or linger and die. If only my decision had been so forceful, it might have occurred sooner "I have not given you the credit you deserve until now. I apologize for my lapse in judgement, it will not happen again." I'm not sure who those words are directed to...but probably more than a few ghosts.

My thoughts go back to a man. "There was a man once, on Earth. I fell from the sky into his ranch like a comet, my body broken, my spirit torn. I regenerated and he helped me to recover, to learn about the world I had landed on. He was...the first person to show me kindness. One day, his son came and found me. His father was dying of cancer. When I went to his side I found him incapable of understanding his surroundings. His son pleaded with me to end his suffering. I hesitated...and then I took the last moments of his life away, allowed him the peace of death. More than a hundred years later I wore his face. I tried then to live up to his ideal, but I didn't know how." I bite my lip, contemplating my words carefully. "I realize now that I have been mired in the past. I did not look forward and ask myself what to do next, I looked to the past and said 'how do I atone?' but in never forgiving myself...how can I expect others to forgive? If I do not move on from titles such as the Butcher of Kalathrix or the Annihilator of Agleman...how can others?"

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The Temporal Hound was bemused...and pleased. He guided his thought statement to Sitri only. Her eyes open. She sees. You are a good influence, Seer of Truths. Had you only been alive twenty or thirty thousand years ago. We all view the world though our own ways, some with eyes, others with sensory organs...you with wisdom you deny possessing. I know that in this, and in your promise, I can die knowing my friend will grow up one day. She has been a frightened child for so very long. Don't let the skin she wears fool you. All Time Siphons are frightened children at heart, her most of all.You too struggle, though you're much farther down your path than she. When I die, take my friend from this place...and never let her look back.

@demonboundsitri:

"I was different when I created them"I start to explain...but standing here we all three know that isn't entirely truthful either. "I like to think I was." I correct. "My people had grown soft, easily distracted, easily convinced to argue and fight among ourselves, we needed to evolve, to harden...to deal with adversity again. So I created the Temporal Hounds as perfect Hunters, all but immune to our methods of attack, untraceable using temporal vision and utterly, completely...silent."I move to my old friend and, as if sensing my intent, he lowers his head so that I can reach the huge sensory apparatus that people liked to call horns and crests. "He can sense time, its fluctuations, its imperfections...it's alterations. If he needs to find someone he can trace them through time and space, relentlessly, without need for star ships, for food, for sleep...or even need to hurry. They can stalk their prey through time in much the same way you and I move through it. They have killed tens of thousands of Time Siphons but I didn't want the hard times to last forever."

I shake my head and look off into the distance, biting my lip for a moment. "There are a great many things I regret Sitri. Sometimes I wake up and I just want to give all the power away, I cured myself and cursed myself in the same moment...it's easy to live life when your memory is fragmented and only occasionally accessible. You forget the things you have done and you move on without a concern. I am not a good person, I try to be, I've even done good things but they were never in the name of being good...they were always done to try and make up for something, or to make myself feel better about my past. You still have the choice. That's...what everything I'm trying to do with you is about. I want you to see the choice...and the consequences. Be good, stop trying."

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The Temporal Hound shifted. I wonder if you might do a dying hound a favor. The Temporal Hound asked Sitri. When she is done showing you the bad things...show her the good ones. Not every decision she has made has been wrong or ended in evil or an attempt at self apology. What I have learned in my time...especially on Earth, is that life is...a mix of good and bad and the bad things sometimes they outweigh the good things...but they don't make the good things any less good. It can be easy to lose sight of that.

@demonboundsitri

"Sitri, I want you to meet an old friend of mine." I say as we step out of time and into the stream of reality again. My anticipation of seeing my old friend dies in the blink of an eye. He towers above his surroundings but something is wrong. I can see cracks along his outer exoskeleton and the brief smile on my face is gone in an instant. Is it that time already? He moves, but it is with a slowness born of failing organs rather than his usual casual I have all the time in the world stroll.

"No..." I had not expected to say that word. I move to him quickly, as if time were running out for both of us and put a hand on one of his enormous legs.

"Yes." He says simply. It is not a vocal speech, but a telepathic one sent to both Sitri and myself. They have no vocal cords. "This is by your design, you always knew it would come to pass."

I look away, forgetting for a moment that Sitri is there. I lick suddenly dry lips and then cast my eyes back up to my old friend. "I wasn't supposed to care."

"Time changes everyone, even you."He replied sagely. "You brought a guest." He reminded me gently.

I turn to Sitri and motion for her to come forward, trying not to admit that my eyes are watery. "This is a Temporal Hound, the perfect Time Siphon hunter. I made him...I made all of them. His exoskeleton is the woven fabric of reality, temporal energy fused with Reality Strings, it creates an invulnerable shell. I...created them with a shelf life. He is dying." I say quietly, making no effort to hide the shame in my voice. The Temporal Hound itself is immense, it towers over human figures and exudes a strength of presence, even in its dying hours, that could rival the stars themselves. In the being of the Temporal Hound is a level of confidence that should come across as extreme arrogance...but for some reason it feels as if the Hound can back up its self confidence, turning arrogance into simple fact. To those with senses beyond or other than simple visuals, the Temporal Hound can be felt, reality itself reacts to its presence because it is, essentially, a living chunk of the universe. There is also a distinct sense of masculinity and of soul piercing intellect. Temporal Hounds rarely speak...when they choose to speak to someone, it is because they are impressed with them in some way.

"You did so because it was prudent."Him and his damn honesty. "It is pleasing to see you friend of Raeyn. I spent some time on your world, it is a fine planet with blissful geographical differences and delightful skin tone diversity."

So few remain I would call friend in all the Universe...it feels cruel to watch another one failing in front of my eyes. I can see the end of his temporal line, it will pass us by in a matter of hours.

@maverick_6:

So that's what it looks like. Bradshaw, I have never seen you happier. I watch from my window of time, one step out of phase with everything as he interacts with a family I know he doesn't have. This world of false happiness...it gives certain people some time...a break...from reality. They deserve to have that moment. I won't stay, I wasn't actually here until after it happened. I'm off with Sitri showing her reality, all of time and space and everything that lies between. When I felt a shift I came back to see what had occurred, I watch only from a glimmer in time. It's not my place to intervene anyway...and if I step into the time stream it may attempt to re-arrange my memories...a disaster we don't need.

Look at him though, that man has never been happy. Now I understand...I get what drove him. This is what a family looks like, a real family, not the disasters we Time Siphons like to call families. They're happy, they interact...hell...they touch. A simple thing touch, simple and so distant for those of us who can't trust anyone but ourselves (and rarely even that).

In a moment of weakness I reach out, but I can't touch him, not out of phase with time like this, I can only observe. I swallow past the grief that coils around my heart and crouch down for a moment in the greyness of between time and close my eyes. It takes considerable force of will to hold back the tears. I hope...that this gives him something, in the end. I hope that this is worth it, I hope that...even a few more days with his family will give him just a little hint of a smile later...because on the day he dies, I will be there for him, to say goodbye to my dearest and only friend and I don't want to see pain in his eyes. I don't know if I could handle that. This is powerlessness. To have all the power in the world and not truly know how to make someone happy. Perhaps if my memories of my own family weren't so fragmented and filled with nothing more than the vision of their mangled corpses I could understand family...perhaps then I wouldn't have screwed up my entire race. Enjoy this Eric.

I stand up again, wipe a few stray tears from the corner of my eyes and watch him again. After a few moments I step away. I have one more person to visit.

My daughter. She's caught up in all this, whatever all this really is. She looks happy though, but I know her body will try to tell her this is wrong, it knows, she just hasn't figured it out yet. She's painting right now, painting an entire space ship from head to toe with those spray cans of hers and she's enjoying the hell out of it. She's actually fitting into society, taking care of a daughter at home like a real parent and making people's days brighter and more colorful. Her art is everywhere, it's on billboards, on holographic displays, painted on sidewalks...wherever the government will let The Artist make things happier with colors. I may not be the best friend in the world to Bradshaw...but I am a horrible, horrible mother and that has passed on to her...here though, in whatever this is, she's good at it. I can see her training Pandorika, teaching her to wield a spray can instead of a temporal blade (though she's good with those too).

Sahi stops for a moment and looks around as if something is tugging at her mind...but she sees nothing. She can't, she's not strong enough. I step again and appear in her apartment, empty while she is at work. I remove a piece of paper from a pocket and scribe a note on it in the language of the Time Siphons, reach out and push it through the barriers of time where it lands neatly on her dining room table.

I take a look around the apartment for a moment, smile bitterly and step through time again, away from Earth. I leave in part a note on the table, a notice to my daughter who will one day understand its meaning...but not today.

One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

(A simple one off observation post to tie some development into Raeyn for later use)

@orange_water: @_gaige_: @demonboundsitri: @timesiphon:

I had said my piece to the girl so determined to provoke me to anger. I watched her and made it clear that I was listening but I ultimately chose not to respond. I allowed Sitri to say her good byes and instead moved towards a corner of the room to give everyone the space they needed to say goodbye to a friend. It seemed a bittersweet moment for them. I had often wondered if my parents had the opportunity to say goodbye to one another or if they had simply been killed without a chance to make their peace. I remember so little of those events, my memory pre-time siphon conversion is limited at best. I do remember their faces though and sometimes I remember their smiles.

I try not to. It hurts to think of how much I have let them down.

I close my eyes and reach out instead with my temporal abilities. As Sitri is saying goodbye I coil around her temporal line, a sensation detectable as the hairs of the back of the neck standing on end. I begin to weave my abilities through the fabric of space time. Her temporal line intersects with time up towards the end of her life and although it is "fuzzy" I am still able to concentrate enough to grip hold of it. After that, it's simply a matter of slowly pulling away the fibers of time that connect it to the rest of the time stream. One fiber at a time I take Sitri away from the natural flow of time, pulling her from the future like one might remove a thread from a fuzzy sweater. There would be no visible sign of this occurring, it would take an entity acutely aware of time to be able to sense what was now taking place.

There were numerous ways to remove someone from time...but when the objective was to eventually return them to it the process was more akin to brain surgery than it was to anything else. Carefully incisions in time made the difference between the permanent loss of one's future and a temporary adjustment that could be reversed. Like surgery, it was necessary to also repair the tissue around that which was removed. If I were to simply remove her temporal line from the time stream then her every future and possible future would be left unconnected, floating paradoxes that would split apart the future like a hammer splits apart a ripe melon. So it was that once the process was complete I carefully approached each of the elements of time she had been intimately connected to and tied them off, severing the loss of temporal energy and adjusting the temporal weave such that everything she had been connected to in the future was neatly re-written, a temporary fix that would provide the future with a sea of possibilities rather than a drain through which to cascade. When she was ready to return I would simply undo the temporary fixes and re-weave her temporal line to its proper place.

Once the process was completed, only those in this room remained aware of Sitri as an entity with a future. Everyone else would...well, their brains would most likely process the change by simply not thinking about her. Past experience and memory would be recalled with ease but attempts to think of what she was doing now or might do in the future would be unattainable. Mortal minds adjust easily to changes to their universe, they fill in the gaps like human brains filling in the gaps of misspelled words, to the point that most everyone wouldn't notice there was a change at all and those that did? Good luck.

Removed from the future, Sitri could no longer be tracked or anticipated save by others such as myself, Time Siphons.

When I was done I stepped forward again. "Are you ready?" I asked simply. I extended my hand for her to take. "Take my hand when you are."The second was more command than offer, despite my ability range taking someone to the place between heart beats was best done with physical touch if they weren't a fellow Time Siphon.

She has good friends, I hope I can return her to them better and stronger than she is now so she won't need to say goodbye to them again.